Death's Sweet Song

a selection from ** *Chapter One:* ** The blue Buick pulled off the highway about fifty yards past the station. I could see the driver looking back at the cabins, and there was a woman beside him in the front seat. They sat there for two or three minutes while the man made up his mind, and finally the Buick began backing up and stopped in front of the gas pumps. -Fill her up?- I said. -All right.- He opened the door and got out. -What we're looking for,- he said, -is a place to stay for the night. Do you have a vacancy?- -Sure thing.- There were five cabins behind the station and they were all vacant, Most of them would remain vacant, even during the tourist season. That's the kind of place it was. I wondered about that while I put gas into his car. Here was a tourist with a new car, wearing expensive clothes, so why should he want to put up in a rat trap like mine when there were first-class AAA motels all along the highway? He must have read my mind. -Engine trouble,- he said. -Nothing serious, but I thought I'd better get a mechanic to look at it.- -Oh. Your best bet is to go back to town and talk to the people at the Buick agency.- He smiled pleasantly. -That's what I was thinking.- He was a pretty good-sized guy, and you could see that he kept in condition. His face was burned to the color of old leather, and I guessed he was the type that spent a lot of time on a golf course, or maybe a tennis court. We talked a little about the weather and how hot it was, and then I hung up the hose and went to work on the windshield. That was when I got my first good look at the woman. And she just about took my breath away. At first I thought she was asleep. She sat there with her eyes closed, her face completely expressionless. Her hair was blonde and short, and her skin was pale, almost white. She wore tan shorts and a white T shirt. The tan shorts looked almost black against that skin of hers. As I was finishing with the windshield, she opened her eyes. For just an instant we stared at each other through the glass, and then she smiled the smallest smile in the world and curled up slowly like a well-fed cat. -Will you check the oil?- the man said. I added a quart of oil. Then we went inside the station and he signed the register: -Mr. & Mrs. Karl Sheldon, St. Louis, Mo.- -You want me to call the Buick agency for you?- I asked. He smiled again. -Don't bother. I can drive it back to town all right. Anyway, I'd like to freshen up a bit.- I put them in Number 2 cabin, right next to the one I kept for myself. I went around every morning and put the cabins in shape, but it would take more than clean sheets and a few licks with a mop to make them look like anything. They were all just alike, bedroom, bath, kitchenette-lumpy beds, peeling dressers, cracked linoleum on the floors. But I hadn't realized how shabby they really were before I saw the look on that blonde's face. -Really, Karl! It seems to me-- -It's just for a little while.- And he looked at me, almost apologetically. -Don't bother with the luggage. I'll bring it in after a while.- That was a dismissal, so I went back to the station. The thermometer on the east side of the wash rack had reached an even hundred. I opened a bottle of Coke and stood in the doorway, watching the endless stream of traffic rushing by on the highway. License tags from everywhere-Nebraska, California, Illinois.... Where do tourists go, anyway, in such a hell of a hurry? What difference does it make? I thought, with a taste of bitterness. They're not going to stop here